Cali Day Seven

It seemed this morning would be our first go at sleeping past six. We had no rushed plans, we were within 45 minutes of our destination, and none of the alarm clocks looked suspicious. I forgot to mention that the previous morning—the hotel room alarm went off at 6. The unplugged hotel room alarm that had no digital display rendering it as nonfunctional as it looked, beeping insanely at 6 a.m. No biggie we were up, we had a big day ahead. At our Eureka hotel, what sounded like a team of police dogs started FREAKING out at approximately 5 a.m. Because this hotel sat like a c-shaped apartment building, the sound blasted off of every wall and bounced back in for an echoing surround sound. So much for sleeping in. Not cool, Robert Frost.

I managed to fall back asleep til 6:15, but Buck was up and ‘attum. He made coffee in a water glass (I guess they forgot to supply coffee cups, kind of like they forgot to supply the trashcan liners in the last hotel—we thought maybe they’d outlawed all disposable plastic in California?) Soon our early birds awoke, followed by Mr. B. For Caelan’s wake-up call, we had to jump on the bed and shout to get a “I don’t wanna get up” groan ;)

Breakfast was okay, but much-wanted since we’d skipped dinner the night before. Everyone was hungry! Graysen said he ate like 10 pieces of bacon and a pink waffle (strawberry-flavored batter, fancy :) As this was digesting for her brother, Caelan bee-lined for a baby grand piano in the reception area; I hadn’t even noticed its presence. I think finding musical instruments is her Spidey-sense. It was a player piano, though, so she couldn’t tinkle the ivories.

Not easy to see, but in the distance there was a cool mist rising from the mountainsides!

We were packed up and headed out by 8:30, intending to find the beach. We found a dirty-looking inlet and decided to find the post office instead. Hooray, postcard stamps! My first batch I hesitantly threw into a blue mail box in San Francisco that may or may not have still been in service. Actually mailing the second batch from a legit post office made me feel better.

We turned our headlights north to Redwood National Forest. The ranger there was SO nice! She was funny and enthusiastic and helpful—our favorite traits in rangers. We bought another swarm of postcards, a redwood germinating kit to plant in our backyard (check back in a thousand years to see how that turns out : ), an ancient-forest undergrowth puzzle for our trooper neighbors who are slugging through the foot of snow to keep our chickens alive. Oh, and Buck found another hiking stick medallion in the gift shop. He’s as collecty as the kids, now :)

As we were checking out of the ranger station gift shop with our purchases, it started raining. We went to the beach anyway. This was our first opportunity to get our feet in the sand. The sand was dark gray and super coarse. Driftwood dotted the beach, and the huge waves roared not far from our feet. In the distance a few Goonies-looking rocks popped up out of the Pacific along the coastline. As the wind drove water droplets into our faces, we decided maybe we’d enjoy the beach next time. Oh, and we also discovered this was a tsunami potential area, and that if we felt the beach shake for more than 20 seconds we had better high tail it to higher ground—or you know, get sucked out to sea. Well, okay!

Our second stop was at Elk Meadow and the trailhead for Trillium Falls. At first we were like, oh goody a mud path and scrubby trees . . . but then we walked under the canopy and gasped! These trees were huge, and unlike Muir Woods, you could go off the path. Sometimes you had to because of the mud ON the path, but only a few fat raindrops hit our heads from astounding heights. The rest were blocked by our giant umbrella of red and green. These trees seemed bigger, older, and less manicured than Muir Woods (but I still love Muir Woods : ) Where a tree had fallen over, we could see the massive root structure normally hidden below ground—taller than Buck and wider than his wing span. Our trek eventually led to a hidden waterfall, which was neat, but couldn’t compare to the hike to find it! We also saw moss-covered trees that look like something that would exist in a world where Muppets live. Hopefully you can see the unique yellowish green, sprawling branches in my pictures to get a taste of what they looked like in person. You just have to see them for yourself! 

Along the way, Graysen followed an Adventure Quest map that the ranger had given him in addition to his Junior Ranger booklet (which was full color and earned a sticker that looks like a state seal in addition to the badge!). The quest was fun! Little rhyming clues that entertained and informed. It was kind of like a scavenger hunt/treasure hunt. He even had to count the boards on the bridge by the waterfall to find out where he was supposed to go next (101—the roadway to the next visitor center along the coast).

Back in the van, we drove north and were astounded to see a huge herd of elk laying in a meadow next to the ocean! We saw the Tule Elk at Point Reyes, but didn’t realize there were wild elk wandering this nook of the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, the ranger lady said these were a beefy subspecies called Roosevelt Elk. Buck was thrilled to see two bulls at the second visitor center, another 20 minutes up the road. This visitor center was super cool! It was wooden and set in the entrance to a cove of trees. The super nice lady at the welcome desk said it was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It had a neat, log cabin feel and a massive stone fireplace in the center of the room. By now, Graysen had completed his Jr. Ranger book and his first Quest, so the lady asked him to stand in front of the stone fireplace (good for picture-taking) for his pledge. It was a rhymey fun one! As he disappeared around the corner to find the pressed penny machine the older two collectors had already discovered, the nice lady mentioned there was another Quest for the part of the park we were currently in, and Graysen could earn an elk patch. Boy, was he excited to give that a go! We were excited to spend more time in the woods, so everyone was happy! Well, Caelan was hungry. So first we made pb&J round two in the van.

Next, we headed into the woods for reals. We found what is probably a low-level Ewok dwelling (cleverly disguised as a bridge). [Ummm, addendum: it really WAS an Ewok forest! Buck looked it up and they really did film Star Wars in the Redwoods!] The kids climbed inside rotted out redwoods, we followed another happy stream that looked so inviting although it was probably ice cold, and we heard what sounded like a baby cry once which put Buck on high alert for mountain kitties. The lady at the ranger station said that what we see is only five percent of what originally grew in the area. Ninety-five percent of the redwoods were harvested during a building boom following the Gold Rush. Astounding! She is from California and remembers from childhood when small railroad tracks ran to mills that dotted these same woods. I’m so glad they stopped cutting down these amazing beauties! Some of the redwoods in this park are estimated to be 1,500 years old—they were getting ready to grow when Jesus was on the planet!

Selfie in a tree!

I guess this is why they call it redwood :)

Graysen earned his elk patch on this second quest. He also selected his souvenir, a Jr. Ranger t-shirt, after noticing Gabby had selected her souvenir—a national parks coloring book, cool! Checking the clock, we realized it was time to head for the hills—mountains, really. I need to look up the range we swiveled through [the Klamath Mountains]; the gas station guy said one peak was Oregon Mountain and the other was Buckhorn Mountain. These ranges were no joke! As we drove through the Six Rivers National Forest and the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, up and up and up, the rain continued to fall down, down, down. As we reached the summit, it turned to snow—Narnia appeared before our eyes, once again (like on our Wyoming trip). Thankfully, this time it was in the middle of the afternoon so we still had some sunlight and sunheat to keep the roads from becoming icy.

Looking around, Buck decided that if he was Big Foot, this is where he would live. He’s been on a Sasquatch kick since the Muir Woods, pretty sure this is where the big guy is spending his days. He even got the kids (minus Caelan) to walk like Sasquatch, so that other people taking pictures would have pictures of sasquatch-walking in their photo memories. Caelan and I chose to walk a few steps back so as to not be included in those pictures, lol : ) Anyway, we came to a tiny town in the middle of the mountains, Willow Creek, and I kid you not—“Big Foot Museum” appeared on the side of the road. Buck stopped watching where he was driving and stared at me with an, “I TOLD you so!” expression on his face (with a touch of “please, can we stop?”) I just smiled and we kept driving . . . past Big Foot Burger, Sasquatch Diner, Big Foot Gas and Grocery. These people were committed to the legend! If we had had more time, we totally would have stopped. I guess we’ll have to catch that tourist attraction next time.

Eventually, Buck got tired and tired of driving. He usually does all the driving when we’re on vacation to avoid car-sickness, and he for sure does all the mountain driving. However, he needed a break, so I took the wheel. The kids said they could feel how nervous I was (apparently I was squeaking on some of the hairpin turns). Keep in mind the roads were wet and steep with “slide area” signs all over the place AND construction crews with “slow” and “stop” signs repairing the slide areas. One group had a tent set up and a barrel drum burning destroyed trees as a heat source for the workers. It smelled so good driving by their little mountainside “camp.” I actually mostly felt pretty okay. There were some raging rapids and a significant drop-off to the Trinity River (which was a crazy greenish blue) to our immediate right, but no biggie, I’m sure!?

Thankfully, after Buck got about 40 minutes’ rest, he wanted to get back behind the wheel. I pulled off into a little gas station at the end of a darling little mountain village called Weavertown. Buck and the boys ran in to use the bathroom, and the girls noticed the window posters advertising street tacos. Yup. For supper, we had gas station tacos. However, it was all very fresh, they grilled it hot, and they served it on glass plates. Not bad for gas station tacos! I likened it to our fresh pizza- and sandwich-making gas station restaurants, ha!

The next section of our drive was way less hazardous than the previous. We started noticing the blackened sticks of trees poking through the snowy mountainsides. Wow, that fire must have been intense! It was crazy to see green, rolling mountain slopes on our left, and the blackened, snow-covered peaks on our right. Soon, we came upon Whiskeytown Lake. It was massive and gorgeous. There’s a national park service stop here, too (with Jr. Ranger, of course), but it is closed due to the fires. I took lots of pictures as we zoomed past, so maybe Graysen can do that one online, too. Surely every kid needs a badge that says “Whiskeytown” on it, hee hee : )

We dropped out of the mountains, and drove through a little ruin of a town that reminded me of where I grew up. The main street was just the shells of brick buildings . . . I’ll have to look up the story of Shasta later, because we didn’t have time to stop. To keep awake and entertained, we had a total singfest after our 7.5 hour audiobook ran out. When Hansen is on the radio, you just have to “Mmm-bop!” An excess of driving and miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups might have led to a bit of stir crazy insanity amongst the passengers in the white, rental, Dodge. Boy, were we glad to see the farmhouse lights when we got down from the mountain!